DESCRIPTION

The building of the House of Culture is located within the historic center of the town, next to the church. Its location is privileged, the property being occupied by an old manor house within the medieval walled enclosure known as Casa de Santa Coloma, in reference to its first occupant, a knight of the court of James II (Guillem de Santa Coloma). The house was built shortly after the Christian conquest of the thirteenth century, and ya is listed in the 1488 wealth register preserved in the municipal archive.

In 1675 the house became the property of one of the richest and most powerful families, the Salas, who enlarged it until they reached the portal of the wall. On the door you can see the coat of arms of the Sala family that they obtained with the privilege of nobility at the end of the eighteenth century. The Sala family joined the powerful Torres Orduña de Benissa, whose coat of arms is found on the interior railings and on a chimney. During the Civil War the house was confiscated and was used to house militia offices, a workshop for making military suits, and to welcome refugee children.

Annex and forming part of the same building was the house where the masero lived, with a separate entrance and formed by a semicircular arch, which communicated the courtyard with a door. This was demolished and a block of flats was built.

On the other side, the current Municipal Archive, is the old building of the Caja de Ahorros del Sudeste de España.

It consists of three floors and was built of Freemasonry and a stone lintel at the main door. The house was decorated with abundant Valencian ceramics from the seventeenth century that we can still appreciate on its beautiful balconies and inside the courtyard, in which we can also you can see a large canvas of the medieval wall.

In 1984 it was acquired by the City Council, which proceeded with its restoration under the direction of the architect José Manuel García Gisbert. It preserves the façade, as well as the original layout, although spaces have been adapted for current needs. Inside there are, among other dependencies, the museums of Contemporary Art (since 1991) and Ethnological - Rice, and the municipal archive.

Since 2003 it has housed a small part of the entomological collection of Juan Torres Sala.

In 2017 an exhibition of the prehistoric origins of Pego was on display: Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age.

In addition, in 2019 the musician Josep Sendra Piera donated a collection of between 40 and 50 pieces of rustic and natural instruments of traditional music from Pego and the Marina Alta. These are percussion instruments, and also wind instruments, such as the "badà" reed, the dulzaina and the tabal.

Juan Torres Sala (1892-1974)

From a young age he felt a great inclination for observing insects, although he studied law and became an influential and important lawyer. However, throughout his life he was able to find time to dedicate to the study and conservation of insects, getting the support of specialists from all over the world. He also traveled around the planet gathering one of the most valuable collections of insects, always accompanied by his wife. He was a prominent entomologist and member of the Royal Spanish Society of Natural History.

Politically conservative, he was very influential during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and mayor of Pego between 1930 and 1931. Later he was a member of the Regional Agrarian Right and Popular Action, a party with which he was elected as a deputy for the province of Alicante in the elections of 1933 and 1936. During the Spanish Civil War he supported the Franco regime and at the end he was councillor and deputy mayor of the Valencia City Council (1943-1947), director of the Valencian Culture Centre and the Alfonso el Magnanimo Institution.

When he died in 1974 without direct descendants, he donated his collection of insects to the city of Valencia, containing more than 75,000 beetles and lepidoptera from the Valencian Community and the rest of the world.

The Torres Sala Entomological Foundation, as a non-profit organisation, was created in 1976 by the Generalitat Valenciana, the City Council and the Provincial Council of Valencia, together with the University of Valencia, the nephews and grandchildren of Mr. Juan Torres Sala, "in order to promote research, conservation and education in Natural History". Later, this Foundation became the Valencian Museum of Natural History where the Torres Sala Entomological Collection was kept and exhibited to the public until its closure in 2012. Since then, the Collection has been stored in the old building on Paseo de la Petxina in Valencia awaiting a solution.